|
Discipleship Resolutions
New year, new you! We often hear this or something like it at the beginning of each new year. This is the time of year that we consider what we might do differently in the new year. I have never been big on making New Year’s resolutions and this is because most of them do not last. So, if I do make them, I like to identify things I know I can accomplish, such as vowing to avoid dessert at every meal. I do not eat dessert at every meal, so I feel confident that I can accomplish this challenge. However, this does mean I cannot have cake or cookies at breakfast, which can be difficult when such delicacies are sitting on the counter. Afterall, it is a well-known fact that breakfast desserts do not have nearly as many calories as regular desserts; especially if you simply graze, taking two or three bites that are spread out over 10 or 15 minutes. If you did not know this, you are welcome. . . Happy New Year!
When I am not busy making easily attainable goals for myself, I like to carve out time to make resolutions for my family. This year, in the lead up to New Year’s Day, I joked with my wife Sara and my children that they should be prepared because I had a list of resolutions for each person that I would be handing out the next day. Sara loved this idea and so did the kids! Who doesn’t love it when someone else identifies areas for your improvement?? My family did not appreciate what I felt was a pretty solid joke.
All joking aside, sometimes I feel that a part of my job as a pastor is to make resolutions for the church. The difference, of course, is that pastors seek to do so in accordance with scripture and the call of Christ to follow his way. So, these are not so much resolutions as they are humble attempts to relay the challenging call that God places on our lives; the call to be Christ’s disciples. By that definition, any time is a good time to make resolutions for how we might be more faithful in our discipleship.
Of course, discipleship resolutions are vastly different than the ones we most associate with this time of year. When making new year’s resolutions, our minds almost immediately go to what we might do for ourselves to be healthier, such as more exercise and better eating habits. Discipleship resolutions on the other hand are almost always outward-focused. They begin with the questions, “How might I help others?”; “What are the needs that I see around me and how can I be a part of addressing them?”; “What can I do to make the world better, to be more faithful to Jesus’ witness of compassion which was heavily focused on the poor, marginalized, and oppressed?”.
Like New Year’s resolutions, discipleship resolutions are not “new things,” but rather, perceived needs which persist year after year and are often not addressed or the efforts to address them are not sustained. In other words, we know what needs to be done, we just do not always follow through. We know the needs in our community and in the world are great and always have been. And, in many ways, we are faithful in seeking to address them through the numerous ministries we participate in that focus on the needs of others. But truthfully, we know that Jesus’ call on our lives is relentlessly challenging and that if we follow his way, we cannot sit still. We should always be seeking as a church to be more welcoming, more loving, more compassionate, more selfless, more Christ-like.
So, our “resolution” for this year is the same as every year and the prophet Micah says it best, “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Afterall, this is what God requires of us - yesterday, today, and tomorrow. This is God’s eternal list of discipleship resolutions given to us. How many desserts we eat along the way is beside the point.
Happy New Year!
Will
| 
